Christmas in Munnar

What's so different about Munnar, you might ask. It is just another hill-station, just another group of tea gardens, just another set of winding roads that lead up to overflowing hotels, just another place to buy a few more spices and tea packets and eucalyptus oil, just a  few more viewpoints where busy travellers click pictures and spend their money and time recovering from the madness of their daily lives.

This Christmas in Munnar, even as travellers did all the above, I walked, oblivious of the crowd, in the search for something new.

The lilting strains of the carols beckoned me towards the tall and imposing structure that sat proudly above high, winding, steps. As I climbed up the steps and reached the church gate, the crowd mingled with me - tourists along with the local people, impossible to distinguish one group from the other, all united in the search for peace and silence.

The Church, which dates back to 1898, was the first Roman Catholic Church in the high-ranges and its gates are wide-open even today as people filter in for a moment of quiet worship.

The high ceiling of the Church echoed the beautiful strains of the oft-repeated carols, some unknown tunes in Malayalam adding to the magic of the moment.

The Christmas service over, the crowd started walking back, the tourists looking for the next attraction, the local people back to their own lives.

I sat on the wooden bench, alone, the carols still ringing in my ears-the child that had learnt to sing the carols in the chapels of childhood now teaching the true meaning of the blessings amidst the calm they showered on the restless mind.

Picturesque Poovar

Legend has it that many years ago King Raja Marthanda Varma was ousted from his throne and sought refuge in a tiny island called Poovar. He was so captivated by its beauty that he named it Poovar - the river of the flowers.

Today, as our boat navigates the silence of the backwaters and takes us deeper and deeper into the forest of ripples and shimmers, we are greeted by tall coconut trees bending over the shore as if protecting its secret from indifferent travellers, a lone crane that nods a gentle hello and glides gracefully forward, the orange Sun that takes a quiet dip in the pristine sea beyond the golden sand beach, the black lines of the fishing boats where the fishermen measure their catch of the day, the floating cottages that jut out on the green waters and rock gently in rythm.

Poovar still offers a refuge for those seeking silence and beauty, away from the bustling madness of the city and the hustling tourist traps. Poovar offers nothing else but a hint of mysteries untold, stories unheard, ripples unseen and beauty untouched.

The pictures can say it better. An hour away from Trivandrum, accessible only by boat, Poovar offers a rare combination of land locked by sea and the backwaters and silence broken only by the sound of the waves and the flight of the birds.

The orange glow spreading its warmth

The golden sand separating the quiet backwaters on one side and the restless sea on the other

Footprints that will get washed away in the ocean's fury

The boat inches closer, the silence grows

The trees bend over, hugging the water

The cottages that float on the bed of the water

The Sun peeks through the wall of trees

How green was my tea?

A few years back, when I used to be slightly heavier than I am now, (read 20 kgs heavier, give or take a few kgs), I used to go green with envy on seeing the elegant and slim ladies in their designer sheaths tastefully sipping tea from their cups and holding forth on weighty topics such as global warming and India's emerging future.

What's the secret of your glorious fitness? I wanted to ask them.

As if divining my unspoken question, they all declared, in various poses and gestures, all the while daintily holding on to their cups, "Green Tea, the panacea for all woes." If that sounds quite like a bad weight loss advertisement, well it wasn't, except in my mind, maybe.

Now, I have to confess I am quite the tea person. Since tasting the first sip at a young and impressionable age of perhaps 5, I was hooked for life and had no option but to become quite the incorrigible tea addict.

Tea before breakfast to summon up courage to speak to the tomato-hearted, stone-faced cook who is sure to ask, "Where is the tomato, madam, I cannot cook without tomato."
Tea for dipping Marie biscuits and betting on when they would melt.
Memories of 1 small cup of tea over shared dreams and bunked classes.
Tea for meeting friends in office and finding new targets for our word game pot-shots.
Tea for the latest crime novel guess-the-murderer stage.
Tea for the evening rain-soaked hug.
Tea for the mad run in the playground with kids.
Tea for post-dinner soul searching with friends.

Tea, anytime, anywhere. Tea for friendships, tea for love. Tea for being alone. Tea for me.

Strong milky tea, lemon tea, ginger tea, masala chai, women's health tea (yes, that's available at our office, if you don't believe me), tried them all.

These days, I am personally inclined towards Darjeeling tea. The flavors, the aroma, the richness. Not a drop of milk to spoil the originality. 2 sips and I can tell you good tea from bad.

But then, am stumped by the elusive green tea.

My quest for the perfect green tea seems to be the most difficult tea-trek of all.

Tata, Lipton, Kerala Ayurveda, Chinese, Japanese. Tried all brands. All flavors.

That they all taste like varying versions of mildly flavored boiling water, uninspiring to say the least, nauseating to say the truth, is quite shameful to even write about.

And of course, I am loath to admit that, even to myself.

After all what sort of tea person am I if I can't like green tea? And so the quest will continue.

How long can green tea flee?

Green tea and me,
Best friends, we tried to be,
But, alas, the lack of flavor and taste,
2 sips and ugh...I ran away in haste,
Pray, show me the perfect cup of green tea:)

Dance lessons from a 7 year old

Between my husband and I, we definitely have 4 left feet, if not more. Imagine our shock, then, when our enthusiastic 7 year old daughter (yes, by some miracle of God, she actually loves dancing. Since it can’t be genes, we can only thank the school, the daycare, her friends or just her God-gifted twinkle toes) decides to take matters into her own hands and teach us dancing. And she is, of course, one strict teacher. She won’t allow us us breaks to peep into our laptop screens for mails which might have come from bosses or respond to facebook likes and philosophic comments that might have come from friends. The word stops. We need to dance to her tunes.

So, that night after dinner, we clear the table and our throats and stand in attention. The lesson starts:

Twirl

Point

Turn

Twist

Drop

The fact that we almost collapse in a heap and hardly manage to get a step is quite besides the point.

As our daughter, by then, her inept students forgotten, stands, lost in her perfect ballet stance, it strikes me, what more can she teach us, if we allow her to?

Do parents always need to be the teachers or we can leave aside our egos and let our children take the lead at times? What lessons can they teach us?

-“She was hungry, Mama, I gave her my tiffin”. Lesson – compassion and kindness, ability to give regardless of what we have. The most powerful lesson our children can teach us.

-“Don’t use the plastic, Papa, let’s get a paper bag” Lesson – they care for the environment and refuse to take short cuts even if we do at times.

-“Today is Saturday, time for a long story” Lesson – not plan every minute of our lives but just enjoy unhurried and unstructured moments that unfold leisurely.

-“Eat this Papa, I mixed chocolate in the chicken” Lesson – creativity, in the smallest of things, the wonder, the amazement of learning and the complete lack of cynicism and ‘I know it all’ that some of us get used to displaying, as adults.

-“No problem, Mama, if you have a call till late, just talk quickly and come home early” Lesson – solutions before cribs, when we often get lost in stating the problem.

-“You are the best Mummy, Papa in the world, and now give me a Kinderjoy”. Lesson – Inspiration in the people around us – maybe appreciate friends and colleagues more, they might also be happy and give us our version of Kinderjoys.

In her own amazing, funny and creative way, she teaches us something new everyday. 

We may never be able to learn the complicated ballet steps, but hopefully we can at least do some Bollywood jhatkas with her and in time, maybe dance the Lungi dance together a-la Sharukh Khan. 

And learn to be a parent worthy of being called her mother.

From Salads O No, to Salads, Hello

"Salads, Yuck" has been my motto for most of my life.

Growing up in a staunchly Bengali household dedicated to the unwavering search for the freshest fish and the sweetest sweet, I grew up in blissful ignorance of the vast world of salads.

Fibre be damned and greens, well, who on earth heard of that?

The only taste of salad I remember were the customary, large, round, pieces of onion, cucumber and tomato that used to be the standard accompaniment to the Sunday morning, post-Mahabharata, feast of Mutton curry and rice. But well, with the omnipotent Kosha Mangsho around, did anyone else stand a chance? We had so much more to chew on than just cucumbers and onions.

Little wonder then, that I stared in amazement when Popeye extolled the virtues of spinach and wrinkled my nose at the occasional "shak" that dared to venture near our fish-laden plates.

Experimental trips to taste continental cuisine in restaurants mostly had me scraping off the pieces of chicken with utter concentration leaving the bland, bits of boiled carrots and beans to wilt away in abject disgrace.

Till the following kicked in:

• A 7 year old, world travelled, Masterchef watching daughter with her own gourmet demands
• An urge to finally battle the post-motherhood weight gain
• The world of BBC Good Food Magazine that made salads look good, mouthwatering, even
• Nigella, Masterchef Australia and a host of other cooking shows on television that showed salads not just as side-kicks to the glorious meats and fishes but as delicious dishes by their own, healthy rights
• Salad talk did sound way cooler than cucumber when Matt Preston spoke about it in his trademark style in Masterchef Australia
• And did I mention that salads are the easiest to cook and amazing to try your hand at creativity with myriad salad dressings sitting invitingly in Natures' Basket counters?

So, our Sunday morning lunch is a far cry from those good, old days. Mutton, or no mutton, yummy salad is always the first course on offer, much to the surprise of my parents.

Did you know there is a salad for every palate,

Cold pasta, Chicken Ceasar, Waldorf,

Spicy Thai, Gourmet Italian, what's to hate?

Easy to try, just mix and toss,

For extra spice, add chat masala or a dash of pepper sauce,

And say hello to weight loss!

Greek salad with grilled lemon chicken..Source - Internet

The shades of life

We know them well,
They who ruled our dreams and our nightmares,
The angel of white,
Of hope, of love,
A mother’s undying love, a friends’ unshaken belief,
Childhood’s caress, love’s unspoken faith.
The devil of black,
How well we know him.
The black loss of despair,
The swirling snake of hatred.
The empty seed of envy, the ruthless power of ambition,
We grew up watching them, Dancing to their tunes,
But where are they now?
And who are these shapeless forms, watching us instead? 
Unknown, unseen mass clouded by grey,
The mangled web of mediocrity, The naked face of fear,
The shaking hand of indecision, The laughter of cynicism,
The insipid lack of inspiration, The fake smiles of polite disdain,
All shrouded in grey,
They surround us. They engulf us.
We look for the known faces,
The familiar world of black and white,
But they recede further,
The quagmire of grey rises.
It shifts, it turns, the faces change, the faces leer,
You gulp, you gasp, you try to breathe, you try to run,
But your legs give up, you stand rooted, tranfixed.
It is too real to be a dream, too real to be a nightmare,
It is too real,
This endless, rising, blanket of grey.

Sponsored Video: Help a child reach 5!

At 1,

You are working nights, planning her first birthday party,

They are working nights, fighting to get food and safe water for her.

At 2,

You are running for her school admission,

They are running to save her life; she is fighting diarrhoea.

At 3,

You are reading bedtime stories to her,

They are reading the hospital bills with tears in their eyes.

At 4,

You are teaching her about the world,

They just lost their world-

As they stand in front of the small pyre; life and dreams up in flames.

At 5,

She is with you, today and forever,

But for them, she is lost forever.

This is the plight of millions of children in India. Millions who die even before they turn 5. Millions who never get a chance to live, to dream, to learn.

This is the India we never stop to think about as we shower all our love and our riches on our children.

India, a country which has one of the highest number of child deaths due to diseases which can be prevented by simple preventive measures such as washing hands.

Diseases such as Diarrhoea and Pneumonia.

Can we help? Can an action as small as awareness about washing hands help them? Yes, it can. Please watch the video and spread the word. This campaign has adopted a village called Thesgora in Madhya Pradesh which has the dubious distinction of having one of the highest number of diarrhoea cases.

We may not have the magic wand to get rid of poverty but we can do our bit to spread awareness in our neighbourhood, in our schools and in our homes. 

And if we want to do more, we can donate at

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6 lakh children under 5 die this way every year in our country. It's not their time to die. Not yet. Not this way.

They need our action. They need our voice.

This post has been sponsored by Lifebuoy.